Thursday, 30 May 2013

2013 Caine Prize for African Writing Shortlist Released

The
shortlist for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing is out, with an
unprecedented four Nigerian entries making the final list. Pede Hollist
(pictured) from Sierra Leone was shortlisted alongside four Nigerian
writers - Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Chinelo Okparanta, Elnathan John,
and Tope Folarin. The five are now in line to win the prestigious Caine
prize. The winner will be announced on July 8 and stands to win
a £10,000 cash award.

In all, there were 96 entries from 16 countries – a drop from 2012,
when 122 entries were received. In addition to the cash prize, the
winner will be given the opportunity of taking up a month’s residence
at Georgetown University, as a Writer-in-Residence at the Lannan Center
for Poetics and Social Practice. The award will cover all travel and
living expenses. The winner will also be invited to take part in the
Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September 2013.
Commenting on the five finalists, the Chair of judges, art historian
and broadcaster, Gus Casely-Hayford said, “They are all outstanding
African stories that were drawn from an extraordinary body of high
quality submissions.”
“The five contrasting titles interrogate aspects of things that we
might feel we know of Africa – violence, religion, corruption, family,
community – but these are subjects that are deconstructed and
beautifully remade,” said Casely-Hayford, “These are challenging,
arresting, provocative stories of a continent and its descendants
captured at a time of burgeoning change.”
All finalists’s entries are available online (see links below) and they will be published in a forthcoming anthology “A Memory This Size” in July 2013 by New Internationalist and seven co-publishers in Africa.

The Caine Prize, awarded annually for African creative writing, is
named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former Chairman of Booker plc
and Chairman of the Booker Prize management committee for nearly 25
years. The £10,000 Prize is awarded for a short story by an African
writer published in English (indicative length 3,000 to 10,000 words).
An “African writer” is normally taken to mean someone who was born in
Africa, or who is a national of an African country, or whose parents are
African.
Babatunde Rotimi of Nigeria won the last edition.